Happy 100th birthday Dame Vera!
Forces sweetheart Dame Vera Lynn celebrates her 100th birthday on Monday (March 20). The singer who tirelessly entertained troops during the Second World War at home, Europe and the Far East with songs such as We’ll Meet Again and The White Cliffs of Dover now becomes the oldest living artist to release an album of her classic songs, Vera Lynn 100, which comes out this week. Her life is also celebrated in a special tribute show at the London Palladium on Saturday (March 18).
With a passion for painting flowers in her garden in Sussex, Dame Vera’s garden has featured in the pages of Garden News on a number of occasions. We also celebrated the launch of the cherry-pink sweet pea ‘Vera Lynn’, which graced our front cover in August 1989 and is still available from Unwins.
Dame Vera said at the time: “As a child I used to spend all my schools holidays with an aunt and uncleu in the country. Two smells taket me back to those days. The smells of Palmolive soap and the sweet peas that my uncle always grew in his garden.”